Tuesday, January 15, 2008

It's the economy you morons!

Yes, it's been awhile since I've blogged. Between enjoying the holidays with my very significant other and work, well, I've had little time to blog.

Well, here's the truth...yes, I enjoyed the holidays with Ivan but I picked up an old Nintendo 64 and played Paper Mario for days. There you go. Now you all understand I have an addictive personality.

So, pray tell, would make me climb out of my cave and compose another blog? Usually the only thing that gets me out of my cave, besides work, is food. However, this presidential season has really annoyed me. Or maybe it's the so called experts that annoy me. As my brother likes to say, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Lets get this straight: Hillary and Obama want us to vote for them because they will defend us, the slowly shrinking middle class, and help with the health care crises. Yeah, right.

But this is just as funny! Fred Thompson believes there is no recession (remember the Republican debate in Michigan a few months ago?) and John McCain has no problem with our troops possibly staying another hundred years in Iraq.

My goodness, to quote my brother again, the quality of their stupidity is rising.

Ahhh...but here's the thing!

The American people are actually falling for this kind of rhetoric! They actually believe that these politicians are out to help the ever shrinking middle class or we are not really in a recession, it's just a minor fuel crises...

Now, it gets funnier...

Political commentators are "shocked" that many voters want change.

Have politicians and the press kept their blinders and rose colored glasses on so long that they do not really see what we, the masses, are going through? Have they gotten too close to the story? My thought is that many members of the press can't see the forest for the trees...they cover the subject (the politician) but not the real story (the economy or the war).

A majority of us in the wonderful world of the middle class live paycheck to paycheck. So if you have one catastrophic health crisis, well guess what? You just may be screwed out of house, food, and health. Sure, insurance will help but most policies only cover eighty percent of the problem. You may think twenty percent is not much but imagine going without twenty percent of your income next paycheck. Or your well meaning doctor prescribes a medication that either your insurance does not pay or you have a huge copay. Trust me, from my own experience, I have taken prescriptions that have cost more than a paycheck. Fortunately, I had already met my deductible when it was prescribed.

Point is this...how can we entrust any leader with fixing the current system? The plain truth is we can't. Only two politicians are actually discussing the ever vanishing middle class issue (Edwards and Paul); the rest are taking nicely sized donations from special interests in the insurance and pharmacy fields.

And how can we entrust our own press to really pay attention to what is going on in this scary wilderness? This is the same press that seems to only want to cover Clinton and Obama or refuse to ask the tough questions during debates. Today the news is focused on the steroid scandal being investigated on Capital Hill. Lets see...we have still yet to help the Delta region from Katrina, gas prices continue to rise, and there is that war thing. But for some reason, our leaders are wasting time on the steroid "crisis" in baseball. Hmmm...isn't that Bud Selig's job?

So tonight I might watch some of the debate; depends upon if I want to raise my blood pressure or not. And I will take an interest in the numbers from Michigan. My hope is that Edwards will continue to rise in the polls and that will force Clinton and Obama to answer why they are taking money from the special interests. And I hope the Republican faithful actually force their candidates to see what is really going on out here...the middle class is shrinking and we need some answers. We need a debate not quotes; we need the press to cover the issues, not just the candidates.